Five secrets about the Camaro Z/28

April 8, 2013 |Car & Driver

Moments after Chevy shocked everyone with the scalding new Camaro Z/28, Car & Driver begab chasing down GM execs for all the details on this beast. Here are the five coolest things they learned:

Chevrolet

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1. The Z/28 badge almost went on an entirely different car.
When it became clear, back in the fall of 2010, that Chevy was working on a slayer version of the Camaro—one that would supposedly cure the car of its obesity, its ponderous feel, its tendency toward understeer—the assumption was that the final product would take the Z/28 badge. It wasn’t just our assumption, either. Apparently, show and photo prototypes had been built with the Z/28 badge. But purist GM execs intervened. However awesome the car was, they said, something with a supercharged 6.2-liter V-8 didn’t meet the original spirit of the high-revving, stripped-out, Trans Am–ready Z/28. Badges were pulled and replaced with ones reading . . . ZL1.

Chevrolet

1of6

1. The Z/28 badge almost went on an entirely different car.
When it became clear, back in the fall of 2010, that Chevy was working on a slayer version of the Camaro—one that would supposedly cure the car of its obesity, its ponderous feel, its tendency toward understeer—the assumption was that the final product would take the Z/28 badge. It wasn’t just our assumption, either. Apparently, show and photo prototypes had been built with the Z/28 badge. But purist GM execs intervened. However awesome the car was, they said, something with a supercharged 6.2-liter V-8 didn’t meet the original spirit of the high-revving, stripped-out, Trans Am–ready Z/28. Badges were pulled and replaced with ones reading . . . ZL1.